


But Words...

by kuonji



Series: Hurt [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anger, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"They did horrible things to you."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Rodney snorted. "No. Look at me. I'm perfect. I looked worse after the planet of thorns and crabgrass."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Words...

It was 0630, Monday, Atlantis time. John's morning conditioning had brought him to the infirmary, again. His arm was still at least a week shy from being back to normal, but his wound had healed well and the physical therapy sessions were no more painful now than any hard workout should be.

After the sessions, he always stopped by next door.

And as always, he hesitated at the threshold. The same cocktail of rage, frustration, relief, and helpless hope flushed through him before he stepped inside.

Rodney was sitting up today, the privacy curtain open around him. His eyes flickered up at John's entrance, skittered up and down his body, then snapped back to the chair beside him where one of the nurses was working from a datapad, following her tiniest movements with a hunted look. It was always the same.

John grit his teeth, put a smile on, and approached the bed. The nurse nodded to him, familiar with him by now, and retreated. He wished she wouldn't. He never knew what to say during his visits.

Traditionally, his bedside manner consisted of a few jokes, some well-wishing, and occasionally a pat on the shoulder. Having the reminder of his most colossal failure in front of him took the words out of his mouth, however, and he knew that any physical contact would be unwelcome.

This time, he was dubiously saved by a first in his visits thus far.

Rodney initiated the conversation:

"Have you read it?"

John knew what Rodney was referring to: his list of 'confessions'.

"Yeah."

Temporarily out of action or not, he was still Commanding Military Officer. Carson had delivered the report to him as soon as Rodney had finished. John had been last to the meeting room afterwards, and it had been only Elizabeth's iron will that had made the discussion at all productive.

_Personality: Impulsive. Stubborn. Vengeful. Cagey._

_Usefulness: Can activate and use Ancient devices. Exemplary pilot. Crack shot. Ability to establish good will. Adept at mathematics and spatial cognition._

_Weakness: He can't leave a man behind; anyone can be a hostage. He lives to fly; blindness would probably kill him. Too quick to trust. Lack of caution._

There was more of the same, plus random facts he had shared with Rodney about himself, his favorite color, his hobbies -- though, true to Rodney's promise, never anything about Earth. And at the end of the section, as if in apology: _I told them John Sheppard was the bravest man I ever met._

John found himself both chilled and touched at how much Rodney evidently noticed about him and everyone else on the base.

There were profiles for everyone that Rodney knew, the level of detail varying only with Rodney's closeness with the individual. They had been thorough.

Following were reports of all the technical information they had gotten out of Rodney, including how to build the devices that had decimated SGA-7 and SGA-12 and had later nearly prevented Rodney's rescue. Eight fine people dead, and Dodgson and Sanders were maimed for life. Ironically it was only because of the attacks that they had discovered Rodney was still alive.

Nothing involving human lives could ever be called a 'fair trade', but John was more glad than he could say in company that they had gotten Rodney back.

He reached for Rodney's shoulder, only to have him jerk it away. "Don't," Rodney said. There was none of the familiar irritation that might once have accompanied such a demand, only a careful timid air that John had never heard from Rodney before he'd been taken.

Rodney was frightened to be alone, terrified to have people around him; he was nervous when he didn't have food, but reluctant to eat; wary in the dark, but skittish with the lights on; he reached out for things, but flinched when he was handed them; he stared hungrily at everyone, but he shied away when they looked back.

In short, he was a mess.

"They did horrible things to you."

Rodney snorted. "No. Look at me. I'm perfect. I looked worse after the planet of thorns and crabgrass."

From a physical standpoint, that was almost true. Aside from a deep knife wound that had been well cared for and a smattering of what Beckett deemed to be mild injuries, Rodney was fine. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding, not even any infections to worry about. On the surface, Rodney looked closer to normal than John himself who, once confident at least in his own strength, now had trouble lifting anything more than a couple of pounds with his right arm.

John tried for light. "I'm sure no one would call you perfect, Rodney."

He had been expecting Rodney to puff up with some retort -- and, for the briefest moment, it looked like he was about to -- but instead he only sighed and said, "No. Of course not."

"Rodney, damn it..." He reached out again, but Rodney looked up, and the sight of his wide eyes, framed by pale face and whitened hair, made John realize with a shock that it was the first time Rodney had looked at him straight-on since he'd come back.

"Can we-- not now?"

John watched Rodney's eyelashes flicker with the strain of returning John's gaze. "Okay," John said, and left.

***

He was back no more than an hour later, the pleading look on Rodney's face refusing to vacate his mind. He walked into what he recognized instantly as the winding down of a bout of infirmary pandemonium. Instantly, he was back in that jungle, Rodney at the DHD, as usual their only chance of escape. He could see nothing through the trees yet, but his team tense beside him and the quiet of the birds were his warning for disaster.

"It'll only hold for a few seconds! GO!" Rodney said, as the wormhole kawooshed into being, and John snarled and shoved his way through the people cleaning up equipment around Rodney's bed.

"What happened?" When no one answered him, he seized the nearest nurse, a dark-eyed new recruit who babbled the answer in fits and starts.

Allergic reaction. Trays mixed up. Marmalade instead of jam.

He lunged forward and saw for himself, Rodney's already weak body, shaking from shock and the stress of bodily systems shutting down. The stress of nearly dying.

He reached out for the third time that day and caught one unresisting arm, prompting a startled whimper. "What _happened_ , Rodney?"

"I'm sorry. They always catch me. I can't ever..." The words were nonsensical, irrelevant.

"Goddammit, Rodney, you can usually sense citrus a mile away!"

The pale man shrank away from him, shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "They're always there. I tried..."

"We are not getting you back now so you can kill yourself from some stupid mistake of--"

"Please." Rodney wouldn't look at him, and John wanted to-- he wanted to thrash him, shake him, make him _hurt_. John had thought Rodney was _dead_ and now he had him back but he was realizing that he really didn't have him at all.

"What are you doing?" Fingers dug into his arms on either side and John lashed out as he was dragged backwards.

Carson must have better reflexes than John thought, or else John was just that distracted, because the doctor easily deflected the blow and shoved John away from Rodney's bedside. "Go," he ordered, pointing imperiously at the far corner. John dug in to protest this time, but Carson pushed him none too gently in the prescribed direction, marching after him until they were against the wall, surrounded by extra equipment.

"You're upsetting my patient." Carson's voice was clipped, the natural rolls of his accent virtually disintegrated by his obvious anger.

John did not back down. " _You_ were feeding him poison," he reminded him. "If he had died because of you..."

Carson sagged all over, and his blue-water eyes shifted away.

_Weakness: Low self-confidence. Fear of responsibility._

"It was a gross mistake." He swept a hand over his forehead. "If we hadn't been monitoring him... But honestly, how could Rodney not have noticed? He's usually so neurotic about it. I need to do some tests on his olfactory senses..."

John tuned out the doctor's diagnostic mutterings. Looking around, he caught sight of the evidently hastily re-located trolley with the discarded food tray. In a sudden fit of rage, he snatched up the plate of orange jelly-like fruit preserve at the edge, ready to hurl it across the room, and damn the consequences. He jerked to a stop, not because of Carson's outcry beside him, but because he had realized a vague off-ness about what he held.

He frowned at the large messy indentation in the mound, as if from hurried blunt fingers. One glance showed that the knife and bread on the tray had not been touched.

John handed the plate of marmalade to Carson. "You ever seen Rodney eat jam like that?"

They both stared at the evidence, Rodney's mumbled apologies coalescing into a horrible sense.

"Oh, dear lord..." Carson whirled to stare at Rodney's hunched back, and John saw the thought flicker over his face.

"No!" he said, seizing Carson's shoulder and forcing his eyes back to himself. "You're not restraining him."

Carson looked uncertain for a brief moment, but to his credit, he shook himself with a look of disgust. "Of course not. What was I thinking. Travis!" He gestured a nurse over. "Upgrade the watch on Dr. McKay to Attempt. Notify Doctor Heightmeyer. And schedule half an hour this afternoon for a full review, please. Mistakes like this can't happen again."

"Yes, Doctor."

"I can put some men on..." John started to offer.

"No." Carson, in his element again, was firm. "No military. You saw how he reacted to even Cadman in her civvies."

The so-called 'Travis', a tall Nordic-looking man, ducked his head at the mention and scurried back towards the terminals, presumably to check duty rosters. Judging from the time, he might have been on shift the first day, when, still groggy from the brain scan, Rodney had caught sight of Lt. Cadman coming to visit. From what John had heard, Rodney had evidently been convinced that she was here to take him 'back'.

It had taken four men and women to hold him down and finally to sedate him enough to calm him.

John had caught Cadman in the hallway after the incident with her face in her hands, her long hair fluttering around her fingers. She had suggested he not visit Rodney until Rodney asked for him, and when Beckett and Heightmeyer had said the same, John had cowered away, obedient.

"You're right," he said. Carson gave him a measuring look but did not press.

"I'll go see to Rodney, then."

John followed Carson back with his eyes. As the soft-spoken doctor approached the bed, John saw Rodney reach instinctively for the healing touch of his friend.

_Impulsive. Stubborn. The bravest man I ever met._

They would get through this, John swore. Because that was how things worked. And even if he never got Rodney back, then he could at least make sure that what Rodney saw in John was not just empty words.

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:  
> [Have You Ever?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/379040), by kuonji [Stargate Atlantis]  
> [Bound By Will](http://sga-flashfic.livejournal.com/456325.html), by sheafrotherdon [Stargate Atlantis]


End file.
